Saint Blane (Old Irish Bláán) was a Bishop and Confessor in
Scotland
, born on the
island of Bute
, date
unknown; died 590. His feast is kept on
10 August.
He was a nephew of St.
Cathan, and was educated in Ireland
under
Sts. Comgall and
Kenneth; he
became a
monk, went to Scotland, and eventually
was bishop among the
Picts. Several miracles
are related of him, among them the restoration of a dead boy to
life.
The
Aberdeen Breviary gives these
and other details of the saint's life, which are rejected however,
by the
Bollandists. There can be no
doubt that devotion to St. Blane was, from early times, popular in
Scotland.
His monastery became the site of the Cathedral of Dunblane
.
There was
a church of St. Blane in Dumfries
and another
at Kilblane. His name is recorded on
the Scottish landscape at Strathblane in the central lowlands from
Loch Lomond to Dunblane. The year of the saint's death is variously
given as 446, 590, and 1000: 446 (
Alban
Butler,
Lives of the Saints) is evidently incorrect;
the date 1000, found in
Adam King,
Kalendar of Scottish Saints (Paris, 1588), in
Dempster,
Menologium Scotorum (Bonn, 1622),
and in the "
Acta SS.", seems to have crept
in by confusing St. Kenneth, whose disciple Blane was, with Kenneth
the King of Scotland about 1000. The highest authorities say the
saint died 590.
The ruins of his church at Kingarth
, Bute, where
his remains were buried, are still standing and form an object of
great interest to antiquarians; the bell of his monastery is
preserved at Dunblane.
References